Patty's Butterfly Days eBook

“Yes, father will send for her as soon as we
decide. But you know, Mrs. Fairfield, I should
keep house, as I always do, and Aunt Adelaide would
only be with us in the cause of propriety.”

Nan smiled at the thought of Mona’s housekeeping,
for “Red Chimneys” was so liberally provided
with servants that Mona’s duties consisted mainly
in mentioning her favourite dishes to the cook.

“Are you sure you could behave yourself, Patty?”
asked her father, teasingly, “without either
Nan or myself to keep you in order?”

“Oh, yes,” said Patty, drawing down the
corners of her mouth demurely. “In fact,
as I should be on my own responsibility, I’d
have to be even more careful of my manners than I am
at home.”

Mr. Fairfield sighed a little. “Well, Puss,”
he said, “I really wanted you with us on our
trip, but as you’d rather stay here, and as
this way seems providentially opened for you, I can
only say you may accept Mona’s invitation if
you choose.”

“Then I do choose, you dear old Daddy!”
cried Patty, making a rush for her father, and, seating
herself on the arm of his chair, she patted his head,
while she told him how glad she was of his consent.
“For,” she said, “I made up my mind
not to coax. If you didn’t agree readily,
I was going to abide by your wishes, without a murmur.”

“Oh, what a goody-girl!” said Mr. Fairfield,
laughing. “Now, you see, Virtue is its
own reward.”

“And I’m so glad!” Mona declared,
fervently. “Oh, Patty, we’ll have
perfectly elegant times! I was so afraid you wouldn’t
want to come to stay with me.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” said Patty, “but
I warn you I’m a self-willed young person, and
if I insist on having my own way, what are you going
to do?”

“Let you have it,” said Mona, promptly.
“Your way is always better than mine.”

“But suppose you two quarrel,” said Mr.
Fairfield, “what can you do then? Patty
will have nowhere to go.”

“And you’re too amiable,” supplemented
Nan, who was fond of Mona in some ways, though not
in others. But she, too, thought that Patty would
have a good influence over the motherless girl, and
she was honestly glad that Patty could stay at her
beloved seashore for the rest of the summer.

So it was settled, and Mona went flying home to carry
the glad news to her father, and to begin at once
to arrange Patty’s rooms.

CHAPTER III

SUSAN TO THE RESCUE

The day that Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield were to start
on their trip to the mountains came during what is
known as “a hot spell.” It was one
of those days when life seems almost unbearable,—­when
the slightest exertion seems impossible.

There was no breeze from the ocean, and the faint,
languid land breeze that now and then gave an uncertain
puff, was about as refreshing as a heat-wave from
an opened furnace door.